Writing Exercise and Competition

You’ve heard it a million times, but the only way to become a better writer is to read and to write. For now, we’ll focus on the writing. If you’re anything like me, ideas for experimenting with style and voice can be difficult to come by and prompts for writing feel too forced to be my own. I’ve found the best writing prompts give you just one piece of the puzzle. Something to inspire rather than guide. Let’s use a Flash Fiction Contest to inspire.

I’ve recently started asking people to give me two words. Any words. The first two they think of. I can use these words to describe the style I write with, the mood, or the plot of the work itself. It may not seem like much, but it only takes a little push to get going. I find it particularly useful to limit myself to 1,500 words for each of these exercises. This way, I feel no commitment to the project if it doesn’t come out how I had hoped, and if I’m loving it, I can always expand.

It can be difficult to get yourself to sit down and write just for the sake of writing, so let’s work together on this one and give you a little incentive. We’ll do this exercise together. Use the words “Ghosts and Gears” to get started. Email us your Flash Fiction, and we’ll pick our favorite one and post it on the Goose Lodge website and Instagram. The deadline for submissions will be September 30th.